Rally held to protest Liberals' broken electoral reform promise

Rally held to protest Liberals' broken electoral reform promise

Theresa Hayes
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12 February, 2017, 04:13

"The outrage stands across all parties, as you can see here", said Hilary Stead, a retired journalist and Cowichan Valley farmer, adding: "If you don't have Liberals challenging it, it's going to be very hard to get Trudeau to change his mind".

During his recent town hall tour of northern communities, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked about his decision.

"I felt that it was not in the best interest of our country or of our future that I turned my back on that promise, and I know people will be disappointed", Trudeau said.

But this month, he announced that electoral reform would not be part of the mandate of newly appointed Minister of Democratic Institutions Karina Gould.

"I said, 'if we vote in Trudeau, this will be the last time we have to vote strategically, ' and I believed", she said.

He went on: in a nutshell, while he has a responsibility to keep his promises, he has a greater responsibility to keep the country together.

"I really wanted something different from him and I'm just I'm dissapointed, and I think this is the only way and I'll fight this as much as I can".

As opposed to first-past-the-post, an electoral system in which the first party to win a majority of the seats gets to form a government, proportional representation is created to more accurately reflect the results of the popular vote.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, MP for Saanich and the Gulf Islands, recalled how energized she and 11 others electoral reform commitee members were as they travelled coast-to-coast to take the pulse of Canadians.

A couple of new polls suggest that Canadians want Prime Minister Trudeau to stand up and challenge Donald Trump when they meet in the next couple of weeks.

Calgary's protests joins over 20 rallies held across the country.

"We had a crystal clear promise and so many Canadians voted for the government because of this promise", said Andrew MacLean of Fair Vote Canada.